Reply to: Utility bills gone through the roof. Blame Brexit?

[Mordac]

I can see the idea of being able to track your usage, live, and to get pretty graphs and so on. But those are quite minor things... and you can buy 3rd-party things pretty cheaply which give the same functionality IIRC? Though that said for poorer people having to buy something even cheaply is not a big help.

Cos I'm so exciting, I have a spreadsheet of regular readings.

You must get invited to so many parties...

[d000hg]

I can see the idea of being able to track your usage, live, and to get pretty graphs and so on. But those are quite minor things... and you can buy 3rd-party things pretty cheaply which give the same functionality IIRC? Though that said for poorer people having to buy something even cheaply is not a big help.

Cos I'm so exciting, I have a spreadsheet of regular readings.

[Mordac]

They have in built sensors to detect strong magnetic fields, so the old leccy hack of putting a strong magnet next to the device will raise an alert

HTH

Crapita have some sort of association to these things, so I doubt their sensors are even capable of detecting whether they're connected to the f**king grid...

[shaunbhoy]

how can we do that we run our dishwasher 3 times a day and sometimes 4 at the weekend

I'm not staying up all night loading and unloading the dishwasher, had enough experience of that with the tapes.

ffs.

Milan.

Just do as I do and get the Butler to do it.......

HTH

[milanbenes]

Wasn't the idea behind this that you could bung the dishwasher and washing machine on overnight when demand was lower (benefit for the generators) and so a price differential could be introduced (benefit for the consumer). Is this not the case?

how can we do that we run our dishwasher 3 times a day and sometimes 4 at the weekend

I'm not staying up all night loading and unloading the dishwasher, had enough experience of that with the tapes.

ffs.

Milan.

[Benny]

How come nobody has figured out how to hack these things to signal a much lower electricity usage? Come on chaps, sure we could do it.

They have in built sensors to detect strong magnetic fields, so the old leccy hack of putting a strong magnet next to the device will raise an alert

HTH

[BR14]

Just had the call from our supplier; "we need to install a smart meter as it's now compulsory."

Me "Oh no it isn't".

Them (after a very long on-hold pause) "We'll get back to you".

And that's British Gas ffs.

yes, i had that yesterday with SP
chancers

[Mordac]

Just had the call from our supplier; "we need to install a smart meter as it's now compulsory."

Me "Oh no it isn't".

Them (after a very long on-hold pause) "We'll get back to you".

And that's British Gas ffs.

[vetran]

they would probably be better off offering IP based Efergy like sockets that measured and switched sockets and a central tool.

cost £10 a socket, deployment by user (like a fire tv).

Socket switches on at night transmits power usage of 2kw and discount of 10-20% applied to that 2kw of cost on bill.

100,000 houses on webeconomy7 for £2m. You can probably get the customer to pay for the socket.

[Antman]

There are Time-of-Usage electricity meters already but with Smart the possibility is there to update the stuff like the rates, time periods to be used on the device by using an over the air upgrade.

The idea being that if behaviour could be managed by switching on washing machines at night then it would stop the expensive peaks and troughs in the power stations.

Crapita have just got rid their Smart program manager and it seems that there is more openness with what they are trying to do, so fingers crossed.

[MrMarkyMark]

Wasn't the idea behind this that you could bung the dishwasher and washing machine on overnight when demand was lower (benefit for the generators) and so a price differential could be introduced (benefit for the consumer). Is this not the case?

Once Crapita got involved any useful "ideas" were binned and scheduled for a later release

[barrydidit]

Wasn't the idea behind this that you could bung the dishwasher and washing machine on overnight when demand was lower (benefit for the generators) and so a price differential could be introduced (benefit for the consumer). Is this not the case?

[original PM]

Indeed - and here is a classic example of piss poor thinking.

So the assumption being tested is

"If i give someone a device showing them how much energy they are using they will reduce the amount of energy they use"

The reality is not that - you just watch as you turn the shower on and it says you will now be spending £400 per month on electricity - except you won't because you do not have the shower on 24/7.

So you just use what you need.

[MrMarkyMark]

There is no real value proposition for the customer, just for the utility company at the mo, insofar that they don't have to pay meter readers salaries.

Until there are open source IoT/M2M standards for products comparable to Nest, and until these services are subsidised and integrated by the utility companies who reap the economies of the smart meters but don't pass them on to their customers, I'll pass.

And...........this is why they were prepared to lie to people citing legal requirement.

We just told the supplier to do one.

You always know when they are so keen to have you put something in, it won't be for the customers benefit.

Secondly, you know if Crapita are involved it will be far from fit for purpose

[vetran]

could do another law that we invented that has nothing to do with the EUSSR.

Smart Metering deployment in the European Union | JRC Smart Electricity Systems and Interoperability

Member States are required to ensure the implementation of smart metering under EU energy market legislation in the Third Energy Package. This implementation may be subject to a long-term cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In cases where the CBA is positive, there is a roll-out target of 80% market penetration for electricity by 2020.
This report jointly prepared by the European Commission DG ENER and JRC measures progress on the deployment of smart meters across the EU. To date, Member States have committed to rolling out close to 200 million smart meters for electricity and 45 million for gas by 2020 at a total potential investment of €45 billion. By 2020, it is expected that almost 72% of European consumers will have a smart meter for electricity while 40% will have one for gas.
While cost estimates vary, the cost of a smart metering system averages between €200 and €250 per customer, while delivering benefits per metering point of €160 for gas and €309 for electricity along with, on average, 3% energy savings.